Ochihabune
by highaboveme
Summary: Sam comes back to Oklahoma and you can't recover from it. Where there is no hunting but everybody's still off the deep end. Wincest. AU. Dark.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Though in truth, this is really just an excuse to experiment with style and atmosphere, I love AU's that explore where the Winchesters would be without hunting, and all the grim possibilities still of tragedy, even without all the ghosties involved. **

**My goal is for this to be dark and gritty, but that the essence of the characters stays true. I hope the story will justify having them act so awfully.**

**Warnings: Incest, implied underage sex, language, drugs, mean!Dean, second-person-POV, brief Dean/OC**

* * *

Sam looked at you funny and asked were you on speed again?

"No," you lied. You itched your wrist.

He shook his head, his hair shaking out of his eyes. "Right," he said. He spoke slowly, trying hard to get rid of that bad midwest accent over at his hoity-toity school out West. The 't' at the end was crisp and light like ocean salt. A year ago, his words would have been heavy like Oklahoma summer heat and rolling hills. _Raihd_, he would have said. But a lot was different from a year ago.

You were quiet. Sam didn't say nothing back. His eyes shifted all around and then finally he got up off the sofa and went to the kitchen. "You want a sandwich, Dean?" he yelled from the other room.

"No," you answered. "Get my smokes though. In the top drawer."

You flipped on the TV while you waited. Reception was bad out here and you were still working with rabbit ears, nothing fancy like cable or satellite. Nothing like Sam was probably used to. You stopped on a rerun of Home Improvement on Nick-at-Nite.

"Here," Sam came back. He was rolling an orange in his hand and he tossed you your American Legends and planted down on the other recliner.

You lit up a smoke. "How's school?" you asked.

"Good," he shrugged. He peeled a piece off his orange cleanly. The white meat of the rind got caught under his fingernails.

"Yeah?"

"Business as usual," he said. "LSATs are coming up."

"Hmm?" you scratched your head. "What's that?"

"Just some test," he said. "Not important."

"Oh, OK."

"How 'bout you?"

"Nuthin', really," you shrugged. "Driving U-Hauls this summer. Helping people move n' shit."

Sam popped a piece of orange into his mouth. "Good pay?"

"Yeah, alright," you said. "Good for a temporary gig."

"You got somethin' lined up for after yet or..?"

You shook your head. "Gonna see if Caleb needs a mechanic."

"You're good at that," Sam said. "Cars."

"Yeah, okay," you said. "I need the money."

Sam looked away. What for? He didn't ask.

"It's been a while," he said. "You look good."

You nodded and said, "You too." You weren't lying.

You'd thought maybe he'd come back all tan and different and ugly like a surfer with coarse brown skin, out there in California with all the sun, but he was still skinny as fuck, and he still had his strange sad face that made your mouth burn. When the leg of his shorts rode up you saw his thighs were still pale and white as a choir girl's. You swallowed.

"You got a girl?" you asked.

Sam shook his head. "Naw," he said. "Busy studying."

"Why?" you asked.

Sam shrugged. "Just 'cause. Hafta get good grades if I'mma go to law school."

_Lahw skull_.

You laughed too loud. Your cigarette fell out of your mouth and you picked it out of your lap and dropped it in the ashtray on top of the orange peels. "You're gonna be a lawyer?"

"Thinkin' 'bout it," Sam said quietly.

"Well," you coughed, sorry. "That's good. Real good."

"Mm-hmm," he said.

"You gonna be a prose- prosecutor? Or defense?" you asked. Yeah, you watched TV - Judge Judy and Law and Order. You knew the words for it.

"Dunno," Sam said. 'Might not even wanna be a criminal lawyer. Not sure yet."

"Oh," you said. "Well, whatever. Lawyer. That's a good fit."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," you said. "I can see that."

"Thanks," Sam said. He brought his hand up to chew his thumbnail and you could see the inside of his wrist, soft and purple and smooth. You took out another cigarette.

"You sure like arguing enough," you muttered in a good-natured way. He smiled back at you and you thought maybe, yeah, it could be like it was when you were kids.

"So," you coughed. "You're doing good?"

He raised his eyebrow at you like you'd grown a second head. The moment: lost. No, never mind.

"Yeah," he said, the corner of his mouth curling up like blue smoke.

"I'm glad," you said and shook your head, but he'd moved on already.

"How about Dad?" Sam he said.

You kicked your leg out at thin air and shrugged. It was hot and wet, summer in Oklahoma. The only thing you could do in this weather was smoke and stew. Sam looked at you expectantly.

"Where is he?" he stared.

"I don't know," you had to admit. "Disappeared last week."

All Sam did was shake his head and thin his mouth, like he'd heard it all. "Of course."

"He'll be back," you said.

"Not worried 'bout that," he said.

You rolled your eyes. "Don't get your panties in a bunch over it, Samantha."

His eyes narrowed. You avoided his gaze and put your smoke out on the couch arm. You stared at your fingers and grinded the butt into the upholstery for a long time.

Finally Sam sighed. "Fine," he said.

You looked up. "Fine."

On the buzzing TV, Jill asked: _What causes sibling rivalry?_

Big smile, Tim Allen shot back: _Having more than one kid! _The studio audience howled.

It was never going to work out anyways.

* * *

Sam heated up Hot Pockets for dinner and you drank beer and watched football. Neither of you had a team, but same as when you were young, you rooted for whoever was winning.

"You seeing anybody, Dean?" Sam asked once, during commercial break. He said it like he knew the answer.

You laughed and answered, "No, not really." For sex, as it'd always been, you picked up girls at the unfamiliar bars up in the city, or bought tricks if you were on the road, but all those women you fucked you only ever thought of Sam. Not in a homo way, but you loved the kid too much it was hard to separate and then the image filled your head - Sam all those years ago curled on your bed like a question mark, in just his shorts and ratty gray socks. His pink mouth, his soft shoulders, the backs of his knees, and the smooth slope of his back: you could never recover from it.

(And yeah maybe that was a little homo but still you weren't like that.)

"Ah," the Sam in now nodded.

You didn't say nothing else back and after that he didn't either. You got another beer and then you got up again and got more, and you kept getting up 'til you were good buzzed by the end of the game. Sam, always a lightweight, had already started dozing off on the couch after two cans. The light from the TV flickered across his face and made him look dark and pointy. The tips of your fingers hurt with how bad you wanted to slide over and touch him, peel back the shadows and press the palm of your hand to his chest, underneath.

At that moment, his eyelids fluttered half-open and you held your breath and stayed frozen like a wild animal. His pupils, blown open and black and wet, followed you.

"Dean," he said, quiet.

You licked your lips and dug your fingernails into your palm.

The sound of both of you inhaling and exhaling too loud filled the room. You closed your eyes and pinched yourself in the thigh. And that jolted through you and you were up and moving.

The room got tiny and it felt like you were breathing through wet cheesecloth. You sank into the couch next to Sam and even the creak of the springs grated your ears.

"Hey," you said. "Hey."

When he didn't answer, you dead stopped.

"Are you asleep?" you asked. A tiny scratching noise came from the back of his throat. A snore, you realized, and you had to clap your hands over your mouth to stop the hysterical laugh from bubbling up.

Of course. How could you have really thought? You shook your head and pushed up to your feet. Sam hummed and shifted. His chest was rising and falling evenly and there was a thin spot of drool at the corner of his mouth. Maybe you'd imagined the whole thing. You wanted to kick yourself.

You left the TV on and stumbled back to your room where you crumpled facedown onto the bed. The sheets smelled like cigarettes and spilled beer and you didn't bother getting under the covers, you were just so damn tired, especially of your brother, again.

* * *

The last time you'd seen Sam was in that parking lot in Arkansas.

The sick neon glow of the vacancy sign threw his long skinny shadow across the gravel. You watched the shadow hold its hands palms up and open its mouth and say, "So what? So what now?"

This was the end. You were certain. Still, you tried to hold onto him. It hurt. It hurt the both of you.

You stood in that doorway and yelled that he was a traitor, that he was a faggot, that he was a pussy and a liar and a cocksucking piece of shit. Your heart was falling out of your chest and your eyes were burning but he just looked at you and shook his head. Jim Beam and Cuervo had always made you do cruel things.

In truth, you wanted, more than anything, for him to stay, but you didn't know how to put it into words so you heard yourself saying instead, "Just go."

Saying, "Fuck you."

Saying, "Don't come back."

He was silent for a moment. Then you watched his face turn away, out of the harsh beam of the light.

It was a split-second tragedy; you blinked and the rest of him melted away and he was gone. The soft flapping of the rubber soles of his sneakers against the pavement was the last you ever had of him. It'd only been a moment.

It was cold, but August and the weatherman that morning'd said there was a heat wave coming to knock all you out, just you wait.

The heat wave never came. Liar. In fact, that year - that long year Sam was gone - it was always cold. An eternal winter.

You were twenty-two and Dad was gone all the time. You drank too much and got a job working the graveyard shift at a video rental. Your boss was a Puerto Rican chick named Margaret. Margaret was a fat cunt. She thought you stole, so instead of being allowed to work the register, she made you sort videos in the back room, which smelled like shit.

"It's because we used to keep it boarded up," Tracey, Margaret's niece, explained to you once. Tracey worked at the store once in a while, just to help out her aunt, and she was just as fat as Margaret and had long stringy hair and smoked lots of pot.

Tracey was really fucking weird. She was also sort of a celebrity in Tremolo, which was west of you by twenty miles of flat red sand and nothing, because her dad was an ax murderer who killed hookers in Oklahoma City. It was even on the national news with Peter Jennings. The whole thing was nuts, and Tracey enjoyed some sort of privilege 'cause of it, being the most famous person probably in the whole damn county, so she bragged about it all the fucking time.

"You kept it boarded it up?" you asked, just 'cause you were bored and she had a bit of a crush on you and maybe you were awful but you kind of enjoyed the attention and the way she came in nearly every day now to flutter around you.

"Yeah," she nodded, "And last summer a hobo snuck in and lived there for a while."

"What?" you said.

"Yeah," Tracey continued. "He'd watch _Steel Magnolias_ and jack off, like, every night. It ruined the tape."

"What?" you said again.

"It's okay though," she shrugged. "A box fell on top of him a couple weeks later and he died. They cops came and got his body after we noticed the smell."

"Shit." What else could you say? You had to tell Sam. But then you remembered - Sam, the wan smudge of his face chased away into the dark that night by your words, by your jagged fists. The wound was still raw, and you could almost feel it throbbing red and hurt underneath your fugly blue video store smock. You almost choked.

You were still angry but it was getting harder to tell at who.

But then Tracey offered you pot and you took it and smoked it together in the back room, mourning the nameless hobo who jerked it to _Steel Magnolias. _You thought somebody'd have to be really sad to do that, but then again, you were pretty damn miserable yourself. Sam would say something about glass houses, but you were trying not to think of him.

You and Tracey found a copy of Steel Magnolias - not the one the hobo had ruined last summer, obviously - and watched it on the TV in the back. She cried, and you heckled and yelled for Dolly Parton to show her tits.

"Shut up," Tracey said, her eyes red both from crying and the weed. You flicked her ear and said, "Fucking bitch," but she didn't think you meant it so she just pushed your finger away and shushed you again. But you did mean it. Really. You did.

When the movie was over and the credits started playing, Tracey flopped back and sprawled over the floor on her stomach.

"Hey," she said, wriggling closer to you.

"Truth or Dare?" she asked.

You paused. Then:

"Dare," you said. Then you amended, "Long as I don't have to get up."

Tracey giggled. "Okay. Fuck me."

You thought that it was a bad idea, really you did. But what the fuck: you shrugged and Tracey, red-eyed and clumsy, clambered on top of you.

She was a nice girl. She shared drugs. She was ugly, but you were ugly too on the inside, so did it really matter?

You missed Sam.

Afterwards, Tracey zipped her jeans up and looked at you, glowing. Her face was pink and happy. You felt flat, like a rope that'd been cut.

"Call me?" she said.

"Maybe," you said.

You didn't but you did hear she was asking around for you a lot. And when you bumped into her at the video store next time you were working and she was down visiting-

"Hey Dean," she smiled at you, leaning close. She was wearing makeup and a sundress and sandals in sixty-degree weather; desperation came off her in waves. Mostly, you thought, she could use a Tic-Tac.

Tracey'd been nice to you, but you just wanted to ruin her. You wondered where this specific destructive impulse came from.

Maybe you were a psychopath.

"What?" you said.

"Oh," she looked away. "Just want to know what's up?"

"Nothing," you said.

"Really?" she brightened. "Do you want to go out later or something?"

"I'm busy," you lied. "I've got a date."

Her face crumpled for a moment, but then she pulled it up again. Her smile looked like it was being stretched with fishing line.

"Really? Some ugly bitch, huh?" she said with false bravado. "Who is it?"

You glared up at her. "Why do you want to know?"

"Um-"

"Fuck off, ugly cunt," you said, the words pouring out of you.

She stared at you, her mouth hanging open. You met her stare and she looked away. Finally you heard her walk away, her cheap sandals flapping against the floor.

She got you fired that day. Fucking Tracey and Fat Cunt Margaret, collaborating to make your life even more of a sick joke than it already was.

Then, later that night, curled up in your bed and smashed out your mind:

"You're a bad person," you said to yourself.

"I know," you said back.

You still missed Sam.


	2. Chapter 2

When you woke up you spent a moment confused by your surroundings – orange light filtered in through the blinds, casting your room behind some grainy and fiery film. Your covers were damp and twisted around your feet and you wondered what time it was.

You knew you'd had a nightmare because you could still feel the imprint of dried sweat haloed on your pillow, but you couldn't remember any of it.

The sink was running in the kitchen. Loud, ungraceful steps were moving loudly through the hallway outside. Sam, you thought, wondering how he'd gotten into your house, when he was all the way out West.

Then – oh – you remembered. You unfurled your fist and watched your fingertips flood with pink. _Sam_, you thought. He'd come back.

You rolled over to stare up at the ceiling and listen to him rummaging through drawers, flipping through channels on the TV. You could almost imagine it as it was years ago, those boozy, soft afternoons after getting up, with Sam sitting at the couch with his long skinny legs folded around him and his nose buried in a book while you played dominos and drank at the table, sweating bullets in the summer heat.

You finally summoned the strength to climb out of bed and go brush your teeth when the taste of your mouth got unbearable.

When you were done, you went to the kitchen. Sam was there, his top half buried in the fridge as he rummaged for food.

"Hey, you're awake," he said, his voice muffled.

"Mm," you grumbled back.

He withdrew slowly from the fridge, straightening up and pushing his hair back out of his face. "All you've got in there is catsup and a jar of olives."

"Yeah, yeah," you said. "What time s'it?"

Sam frowned. "Four o'clock."

"Shit," you said. "PM?"

"Yeah."

"Shit," you said again. "You hungry?"

He nodded. "I ate some sandwich you had in the fridge for breakfast."

"Fuck, dude," you said, "That's old. You're gonna get food poisoning."

"Hell," Sam shrugged. "Well, I'm hungry again."

"You're always fucking hungry," you added, and even though you hadn't meant to say it out loud Sam laughed so wide you could see his sharp teeth. You remembered he had dimples now.

"Alright, alright," he said, in good humor and you knew from this he couldn't have been awake last night. You felt both awash in relief and like you'd been punched in the kidneys too.

"Here," you went to the drawer and pulled out your wallet. You shoved him a ten and told him to go pick up some of those McMuffins from the Mickey D's down the street.

"S'not breakfast anymore," Sam said. "They don't serve them."

"Fuck," you said. "Well, whatever then. Burgers. Just go before I starve to death."

"Fine," he said, mock-saluting you and heading out the front door with a loud bang. You listened to his heavy steps rattle down the front porch.

While he was gone, you changed the channel on the TV away from what Sam had left it on – The Bold and the Beautiful, you noted, laughing to yourself – and took off your old t-shirt, leaving just a white undershirt beneath that was sticky with sweat. Then you went through all the rooms turning on the fans and opening the windows, but the air seemed too thick and heavy to be moved at all. You splashed water on your face as a last resort.

You went to get the mail and bumped into the young housewife who lived next door to you. She was wearing jean shorts and a skinny tank-top with no bra.

"Hi, Dean," she said. You wondered how she knew your name but said hello back anyways.

"Good, good," she said. Her husband was in Fallujah. Second tour.

"Ah," you said. "I see."

"The baby misses him," she went on. "You should come over some times."

"Yes," you said. "Some time."

"Just come knock on my door," she said. "We don't go out much."

"Okay," you said.

You said your goodbyes and went back inside. You stood at the counter underneath the biggest ceiling fan in the house and sorted your mail.

"Hey!" you heard the door open.

You turned around and Sam was here and setting a bag of food on the table.

"Ta-dah!" he said.

"Finally," you set down the mail and went to the table.

Sam dug through the bag and tossed you one burger. "I got fries," he said.

"Damn straight," you said. "So I don't have to kill you."

"Like you could even," he scoffed.

He puffed up and tried to loom over you but you waved him off.

"I'm taller than you now," he said.

"Still could beat your ass, bitch," you said.

He sagged and pinched his face. "Jerk."

Then his face smoothed out and his mouth slowly spread into a wide smile. You felt yourself mirroring that smile and turned away. You unwrapped your burger and crammed it into your mouth to stop yourself.

Sam hopped up onto the counter and rubbed his hands together. "Fine then," he said. You handed him his burger. Sam drenched all the fries in ketchup and it was annoying as always but you found you didn't mind really.

"How'd you sleep?" you asked.

"Fine," he said, then with mock-outrage, "Thanks for leaving me on the couch."

"You don't expect me to carry your giant ass to bed, do you?" you said. "It's too far."

Sam was staying in the guest bedroom. Dad was gone for now, so of course that room was free, but still. You had expected Sam to move back into your room, like you'd shared as teenagers. You had been excited to get him to fill the other bed, the room always seeming unbalanced and listing to one side when he was gone.

"The guest room isn't _that_ far," he defended.

"Whatever," you said, trying not to sound resentful. "You picked it."

He shrugged and took a bite out of his burger.

You ate in silence. Then you said, "Do you want to go watch a movie or something today?"

He looked up and shrugged. "Maybe. What's out?"

"There's that one with that actress you liked," you said, "She was in that one other movie, do you remember, that we watched – I don't know – couple years ago? It was about this girl that gets kidnapped?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean," he said.

"So you wanna?" you asked.

"Uh," his shoulders straightened into a hard line. "No, it's okay."

"Sam?"

"I want to stay home," he said into his burger. "I'm kinda tired."

"C'mon," you said. "You gotta get out."

You put down your burger and went forward to put your hand on his shoulder and he fell away from your touch. Very casually, but you got the message. Slowly, you pulled back.

"No," he said. "Sorry."

"It's fine," you said.

He shook his head. "Look, I just don't feel up to it."

You stood and stared at him – his flat pale round eyes, and his mouth white around the corners. He was the same color as those bleached and washed-out aluminum trailers you'd lived in as children.

"C'mon," you repeated. "You've got to get out. That's the only way-"

The only way what? You stopped yourself. You didn't know shit about it – moving on, normalcy. You were no ways an expert, least of all when it concerned the two of you. Hah. That'd be laughable.

Sam looked up at you like he knew what you were thinking. He gave you a tired smile.

"We don't have to go out to the movies," you said weakly. "We can go drinking or something. Find you a girl, right?"

He shook his head. You turned away.

"Fine," you said. "We'll stay here. Watch some TV or something."

You finished your burgers in silence and then got up and moved over to the couch. Sam switched the TV back to The Bold and the Beautiful and you watched that until the episode ended and another started. You didn't say anything, barely paying attention to the program, but as far as you could tell, Allison had stolen her sister's husband and now she was pregnant with his test-tube baby twins. The twins might be born with Down syndrome and Allison was worried.

"It-" Sam startled you when he started to speak. "It's just strange to be back."

No, you thought. You didn't want to hear his explanation. You didn't want to know how ashamed and indignant and reluctant he felt to be here. Back in Oklahoma, back with you. His words, always Sam's weapons of choice, revealed everything you tried to convince yourself of otherwise.

You looked over and he was picking at the thread on his t-shirt sleeve. His voice was cultivated and controlled. "I don't know what to do with myself. It's so strange, to be back and I never thought. I didn't think I'd be here again."

He looked back up at the TV, sitting with his arm crumpled to his chest like a broken wing.

"I don't want to get too comfortable," he said, avoiding your eyes. "It's better to be careful. That's it."

"Yeah, sure," you said, hiding your fist in the couch cushions. "Sure."

"Yeah?" he said.

"Mm," you lied.

Your brother always had a way of seeing through you, but only now did you see him and his intentions and unlike the time before – the blindside a year ago that left you reeling – now you knew for sure as sure as you knew the sky was blue, that he was planning to leave you again. His words cracked open and you could for once see the rottenness inside.

Suddenly, you wanted to touch his heart and make it feel like yours. You wanted to fill it with your impotent rage and frustration and desperate lonely weakness. You wanted to kill something, kill him.

And you were angry at yourself too, for daring to dream that maybe you could convince him to stay. That you held such power – you, Dean Winchester – you could hold Sam here, away from his life in California. That you were important enough that he would want to. Your insides were trembling and boiling, you felt near to breathing fire.

Then Sam laughed, nervously, breaking something brittle and hot in the air.

"Not to be _emo_," he said, raising his eyebrows, giving you the opening.

You blinked, allowing your anger to ebb away. In its place, you felt empty, but this. This you could do, you reassured yourself.

"You're always emo, _bitch,_" you said airily, jabbing him in the ribs with one socked foot.

He looked out at you from the corner of his eye, a small smile pulling at his mouth. "_Jerk._"

You held in a sigh. This was easy, this familiar routine. You trained your eyes on the TV but you weren't even sure what you were watching anymore, if it was the same episode or there was another one or if it was a different show altogether.

Fallujah, you thought. The housewife next door who knew your name even though you didn't know hers. Preemptive war. You considered your options. You convinced yourself you had options at all.

Then a couch cushion out of the blue arced through the air towards you. You froze and it bounced off your face and landed softly in your lap. You looked up and saw Sam grinning lopsidedly at you from the other end of the couch, not even pretending to be innocent.

An apology. A peace offering.

You remembered the scene of him leaving, and the crushing aftermath. You knew it would come again.

But his lopsided smile.

"That's it, fucker," you grinned, picking up the cushion and swinging it at him. He shrieked and rolled away from you.

You followed him, scrambling across the carpet. He uprooted another cushion and used it as a shield from your assaults. His war cries echoed in your ears.

"Say uncle!" you shouted.

He landed a good counterstrike with his cushion and gave you the muffled reply, "Eat shit!"

You struggled on the floor, wrestling like kids, arms reaching around the cushions to get at each other by hand. His short nails scrabbled at your chest, his arms flailing out at you, refusing to admit defeat. You gasped and threw out your hip but didn't surrender.

Sam started laughing so hard his face was red and his throws were getting weaker. Finally, he just dropped his cushion and curled into the ground, laughing hysterically and not even defending himself.

"Shut up," you huffed, flopping back onto the floor.

When you caught your breath, you put the cushions back onto the couch and Robocop 2 into the VCR. Sam made fun of the fact you still had – and used – a VCR, and you told him shut up and drink his beer before you beat his ass again with a pillow.

"Yeah, yeah," he said. "You can try, old man."

"Watch it," you said, threatening to give him the worst wedgie of his life if he brought that moment up again. You weren't old at all and the hip thing was a fluke, you told him.

Sam laughed again, covering his face with his hands.

Your heart beat once. Then twice.

* * *

After getting fired from the video store, you briefly got work at a construction site where an old military buddy of your dad was the foreman.

"Your pop saved my life in 'Nam," said the old buddy. "It's the least I can do."

Your standing with him afforded you some leeway at work and you took longer smoke breaks and piss breaks than anybody else. And it wasn't a bad gig, anyway; it was mindless and tiring work and you got to sleep easier at nights without any booze. Well, much booze.

Your second week on the job, you found an old high school friend of yours named C.J. Allman worked at the construction site too, operating the crane. C.J. and you used to ditch fourth period to sit on the wall between the pool and the baseball field and smoke cigarettes and after you dropped out you'd always sort of regretted not seeing him around more.

"Hey, after work," he said, slapping your back with a dusty gloved hand, "Why don't we go get a beer or two?"

"Last time we got drunk together I got suspended from school for a week," you said but still you went with him to a tavern nearby.

Some guy there was buying everybody rounds and you sat down at the bar just as somebody set a free beer in front of you. You grinned at your luck and C.J. looped his arm around your neck and said, "You know after you left school, I dropped out too."

"No shit," you said.

"Yeah, I got my girl pregnant," C.J. shrugged. "She's Catholic, so we had to keep it, and then her father damn near ripped my balls off saying we better get married-"

At this he waved his hand in front of your face and you noticed for the first time a gold band on his ring finger.

"And so now we've got three little ones," he said. "Little fucking devils, but what can you do?"

You shrugged.

"Yeah," he sighed. "Old lady harps on me sometimes, always thinking I'm out cheating on her, but it's not so bad. Fuck that, y'know? I bought a drum at an estate sale up in OKC and I'm thinking of starting a band. Hey, you play an instrument, Dean?"

"No," you said.

"Fuck," he said. "That's too bad. Well if you want in, just say the word. Bryce Johnson - you know Bryce Johnson, he works at the pet shop - is playing bass. And y'know, I really think we got something good starting, I can feel it. We just got to get started with a couple local gigs, maybe down in Ardmore."

"Started to what?" you said.

C.J. hooted. "Fame and fortune, baby! We just hafta get lucky and get some attention, maybe get noticed by some talent scout, and we could get really famous, y'know? We could even go to Nashville, or L.A. or something. We could be rockstars. Damn, that would be good, huh?"

You didn't say anything.

C.J. shook his head, "We'd get so much pussy out there. Pussy and money – damn, that's all you need, huh?"

"Shit, yeah," you had to agree.

You drank some more. The bartender offered you and C.J. ten bucks if you would kick out a rowdy drunk who seemed to be a regular.

The drunk's name was Earl.

"Fuck off, pansies," he slurred at you, trying to swing at you through blurry vision and missing by a mile.

C.J. chuckled and practically picked the guy up by his collar and the seat of his pants (it looked like something out of a cartoon) and chucked him out onto the sidewalk. Some people in the bar clapped and C.J. turned around and bowed like he'd just stuck a landing in gymnastics at the goddamn Olympics.

That night you went home and when you woke up hung-over you were nearly late to work. C.J. didn't come in at all and at the end of the day you heard he got fired for missing the day. You felt bad, but didn't see him again.


End file.
